Sojourner Truth and Katy Ferguson Houses: Housing for young Black women

March is Women’s History Month. NY1920s always centers women’s history; this month we’ll do so a bit more emphatically.

One hundred years ago today … The Sojourner Truth House, 170 West 130th Street, offered a safe haven for “wayward” Black girls, while the Katy Ferguson House, 162 West 130th Street, housed unmarried young Black women, including single mothers.

The Sojourner Truth site evolved, by 1926, into the Utopia Club Headquarters, which provided free childcare for working Harlem mothers. (See Dr. Stephen Robertson’s Digital Harlem Blog). It would later become, most famously, the building where the 1963 March on Washington was planned; this is according to a the website GothamToGo, which offers a virtual tour of the now-landmarked district around 130th and 131st Streets from Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and Lenox Avenue/Malcolm X Boulevard.

One hundred years ago today … the New York Age carried a small feature on the two institutions.

Until 1915 the Judges of the Childrens' Courts had no place to which colored girls showing their first signs of waywardness could be sent for supervision and training pending permanent commitment or placing out into private homes, nor was there a place to which social workers could take a child who needed temporary shelter.

Following a survey made by a fellow of the Urban League, the Utopia Neighborhood Club, a group of colored women, realizing the need, raised the first five thousand dollars.

Through the beneficence of other friends sufficient additional funds were raised to make it possible to open a house at 15 West 131st street during the year 1915. Since that time 300 girls have been cared for: This house was kept open until 1919. In June, 1920 the Sojourner Truth House reopened its doors at its quarters 170 West 130th Street. The new house has a capacity for 20 girls.

The Katy Ferguson House for unmarried mothers and other young colored women over sixteen years of age who are in need of temporary care was opened on July 26th, 1920). The house had been thoroughly cleaned and renovated and made most attractive for the comfort of the girls.

Below, the Katy Ferguson House in 1921 and what seems to be the same building today, though the address has changed to 166 West 130th Street.

– Jonathan Goldman, March 19, 2021

TAGS: Black Women, African American History, parenthood, Harlem, architecture, housing